This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Hubert'; v. Hibbard and Hubert. The forms Hubert has taken are astonishingly large. Hubbard is, however, the favourite (v. Hubert).

Henry Heherd, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Reginald Heberd, ibid.

Adam Hebert, ibid.

Nicholas Hebert, ibid.

V. Hibbert

(German) Descendant of Hebert (combat, bright).

Represented by more than 6,000 households in the state today, Hébert is Louisiana's most frequent surname of French origin, barely outnumbering Landry. The name is also common in many parts of France and French Canada, and in the United States occurs abundantly not only in Louisiana but also in New England, long a recipient of French-Canadian immigrants.* Moreover, a few Héberts still live along the Mississippi River in Illinois and Missouri where their ancestors settled in the eighteenth century.

In Louisiana Hébert families have remained largely in the southern part of the state near areas first settled by their forebears.

Although a few Frenchmen named Hébert came to Louisiana in the early eighteenth century,3 practically all of the state's Hébert families descend from Acadian refugees who arrived between the 1760s and 1780s. At the time of the Expulsion of 1755 Acadia contained a large number of Hébert families, probably all descendants of two brothers, Antoine and Étienne Hébert, who ca. 1640 had migrated from their native town of La-Haye-Descartes in Touraine Province, west-central France.

Like their Acadian compatriots, the Héberts were widely dispersed by the British, some being exiled to England and then to France, others sent to the seaboard colonies from Massachusetts to Maryland;5 some escaped into Canada and others eventually reached Louisiana.

In 1766 five Hébert families had settled along the Mississippi River in the First Acadian Coast (St. James Parish), and two single men named Hébert were in the Attakapas.

These early families may have come with the Acadians who arrived by ship in 1765. Two years later nine Hébert families arrived with the group of Acadians who had been exiled to Maryland, all of whom were settled along the Mississippi near St. Gabriel, present Iberville Parish.

The Maryland refugees, together with those who had previously settled in St. James, began perhaps the state's most renowned line of Hébert families, many of whom became prominent antebellum sugar planters, chiefly on the west bank of the river in Iberville and West Baton Rouge parishes.

Among the Maryland families who settled near St. Gabriel was Paul Hébert (m. 1736 Marguerite Melançon), a great-grandson of Étienne, one of the clan's progenitors.

Paul's six sons and most of their descendants remained in the Iberville area, and by the 1790s some had acquired land along the river in present West Baton Rouge Parish.

One of Paul's grandsons, also named Paul (m. 1817 Eugénie Hamilton), established a sizable plantation a few miles downriver from Plaquemine. There his son Paul-Octave, who became Louisiana's fifteenth governor (1853-56), was born and reared.

By 1855 five Héberts of Iberville, including the governor, operated large sugar plantations on the west bank, three of whom each possessed more than 50 slaves.

The fertile soils along the Teche and Vermilion bayous and the adjacent prairies in the Attakapas attracted a large number of Héberts, who with their Acadian compatriots began to enter this western frontier in the mid-1760s.

Among fifteen or more Hébert families who settled in the Attakapas during the late eighteenth century, perhaps two contributed the largest number of descendants.

One line descended from Bélony Hébert and Jeanne Savoie, who, during the Expulsion, escaped with their children into New Brunswick.

Two of their sons eventually reached Louisiana, Joseph-Pepin (m. 1771 Madeleine Trahan) arriving before 1766, Jean-Charles (m. 1773 Madeleine Robichaux) possibly coming somewhat later.

Both brothers settled along Bayou Vermilion, as did their immediate descendants, including the five sons and ten grandsons of Joseph-Pepin and three sons and nine grandsons of Jean-Charles.

Most of these Héberts lived as small farmers and stockmen along the upper portion of the bayou in the vicinity of present Lafayette, but one of Joseph's sons, François-Pepin (m. 1802 Marianne Mouton) obtained land along the lower Vermilion near present Abbeville, becoming one of the pioneer settlers of Vermilion Parish, where many of his descendants still live.

The other important line of Héberts in the Attakapas began in Louisiana with Jean-Baptiste dit Emmanuel, whose widow, Claire Robichaux, by 1766 had been settled with her family as Acadian refugees in St. James Parish.

Three of her sons left for the Attakapas: Jean-Baptiste, Jr. (m. 1768 Théotiste Hébert), was living near St. Martinville by 1766 and his brothers, Joseph (m. 1762 Françoise Hébert) and Mathurin (m. 1787 Catherine Doré), arrived sometime before 1789.

All three settled in the Fausse Pointe area along the Teche opposite present New Iberia.

By the 1820s Mathurin's three sons had obtained land along the lower Teche in St. Mary Parish, and at least one, Philibert, became a sugar planter near Charenton.

A grandson of Jean-Baptiste, Jr., Placide (m. 1825 Adéline Thériot, 1834 Adéline Richard) and likewise one of Joseph-Alexandre (m. 1820 Clarisse Broussard)-both left the Teche area in the 1820s to seek opportunities in cattle ranching in the Calcasieu prairies, settling eventually on the Mermentau River near present Lake Arthur.

By 1850 ten Hébert families lived in the Calcasieu, most of them along the Mermentau; by 1880 there were fifteen Hébert households in Calcasieu Parish, ten in Cameron.

The Bayou Lafourche-Terrebonne area was the third major locale occupied by Héberts in the late eighteenth century. Most of them arrived in 1785 with the large Acadian migration from France. On various of the seven ships that transported the refugees were eighteen Hébert families, at least eight of whom were sent to live along the Lafourche in what is now Assumption Parish;24 others went to the Attakapas or to the Acadian Coast along the Mississippi, whence some members eventually filtered into the Lafourche-Terrebonne area.

One of the more prolific Hébert families of Bayou Lafourche was that headed by Jean-Pierre and Suzanne Pitre who arrived with their five sons on the refugee ship La Ville d'Archangel from St. Malo in 1785. Sons Pierre (m. 1788 Anne Aucoin), Joseph (m. 1788 Marie Thibodeaux), and Matherne (m. 1797 Marie Bourg) and their descendants settled along the Lafourche near Thibodeauxville; however, son Jean-Baptiste (m. 1795 Élizabeth Bourg) and his progeny ventured into Terrebonne Parish, making homes along Bayous Terrebonne, Black, and Chacahoula.

Another important Hébert family of the Lafourche was that of Joseph (m. 1786 Marie-Jeanne Durembourg), who arrived with his parents on the St.

Remi and whose descendants by the 1840s had penetrated southward along Bayous Terrebonne and Petite Caillou toward the coastal marshes.

Today Hébert families occur in southern Louisiana and southeastern Texas from New Orleans to Houston, with concentrations persisting in two areas of initial settlement-Bayou Lafourche-Terrebonne and the Teche country. A former concentration along the Mississippi in Ascension, Iberville, and West Baton Rouge parishes appears to have weakened during the past 50 or 75 years, probably because of movements into Baton Rouge and New Orleans